


Ancient Creatures of Comfort

by RoriPorter



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Cute, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:00:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23653474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoriPorter/pseuds/RoriPorter
Summary: Zira and Crowley Handling COVID-19 -- When self-isolation is business as usual
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Ancient Creatures of Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> First fanfic literally ever. Be gentle :P

Aziraphale was sitting in the dusty depths of his Soho bookstore, Fell and Co, lost in a tale of love, death, and chaos. Not one customer had visited to peruse the store’s shelves in many days, which was rather how he liked it. Content, curtains drawn, he was cuddled up with a heated blanket in his most comfortable reading chair, admiring an unfinished Shakespearean manuscript by candlelight. Aziraphale was definitely in his element. 

The chair he sat in was a gift from a European queen back in the day, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember which queen, nor which day. Elizabethan, perhaps? Or was it a gift from Joanna of Castile and Aragon? No matter. It was nothing compared to the Egyptian chair he had once been gifted by Arsinoë, but that one burnt down with Alexandria and Zira didn’t like to think about it. He put it out of his mind with a longing shudder. 

“I sure would like some fresh biscuits,” Zira thought aloud. He considered conjuring them by miracle, but quickly thought better, given the last scolding he’d received from the higher-ups for flippant use of his powers. Wasn’t his assistant supposed to be working today? “Kelsey?” he called out to nobody. “Are you working?” There was no reply, of course, as Kacie hadn’t worked there in several years and Zira had never bothered to hire her replacement or, for that matter, figure out her actual name. 

Resigned to not having biscuits, Zira engulfed himself for hours in the revitalizing tragedy of Timon of Athens. Feeling nostalgic for those simpler -if marginally bloodier- times, he fell into the long lost second act of a play that had eluded literary scholars for years. Safely in his own private library, Aziraphale had kept the manuscript hidden for a quarter of a millennium and, having finished reading a rather unsatisfying mainstream publication of Timon, chose to spend his day absorbed in the real ending of Shakespeare’s complicated, tragic satire. With just several pages left, Zira felt sudden unrest. 

‘I’ll savor the end for later’, Zira thought cheerily. 

Delicately placing the tattered book on his end table, Zira grabbed his tea with both hands, inhaling the aromatic jasmine vapors deeply before blowing on the steaming surface of the hot liquid and taking a puckered sip. “What time is it even?” he asked himself with a wilting sigh. Taking another sip he pondered. “I must’ve been in this book all day.”

“You have,” said a silken voice from the shadows. “It’s midnight, Angel.” Crowley, in his snake form, slithered out into the flickering candlelight and coiled around Zira’s beloved chair.

Zira cried out, “Do NOT squeeze the chair too hard, don’t forget that time you broke that irreplaceable chaise lounge! I was able to miracle it back to life, but remember the deposition I had with Gabriel over that?”

Hissing or sighing --it was hard to tell-- Crowley let go of the chair, slithered into the center of the room, and metamorphosed into his human form. “Better?” he said.

“I like all of your forms, Crowley, just don’t squeeze my chairs,” said Zira tersely. “Anyway, what are you here for? Did we have a reservation at L'Escargot on Greek Street?”

Crowley looked befuddled, “Reservation? Angel, do you know the state of the world right now?”

“Why, I… of course, I keep informed on the newspapers,” Zira said defensively. “In fact, hardly several weeks ago I went to the grocery and had a rousing conversation with the cashier about the situation in Palestine and Israel, and my thoughts on that are…”

Crowley interrupted, “No, Angel, Coronavirus. COVID-19. The virus that’s raging across the world and killing thousands right now? You heard of it?”

Zira’s face fell, “I heard something about that just after the holiday…”

“After the holiday? Angel, when was the last time you left the shop?” asked Crowley incredulously. 

“I… I mean… I took out the trash a few days ago, but by your look, I can tell that you mean actually going out and erm… maybe the end of December?”

Crowley laughed, his golden-red eyes flashing, “You haven’t left this place in over four months. That’s literally a third of the year.”

“I’ve been busy!” Zira insisted, “And besides, how bad could this… coed-19 thing be?”

“COVID-19,” Crowley said while conjuring up a tray of biscuits and taking one. “It’s an infection caused by a coronavirus spreading among the humans right now. It’s killing quite a lot of them and making many more very sick. So your people didn’t do it?”

“Oh, my favorite,” smiled Zira, ignoring Crowley’s question and helping himself to one of the demon’s freshly miracle’d biscuits. He took a bite and smiled deeply, taking a sip of his earl grey to wash it down. “Flakey.”

Crowley smoldered, snapping his fingers and making the tray of biscuits, including the one in Zira’s hand, disappear. “Angel! Focus! Did your people do this?”

Zira looked disappointed at his empty hand as the biscuit disappeared. “I was enjoying that.” He whined. “Did my people do what now? And give me back my tea biscuit now, demon, I… I beseech thee.”

Crowley sighed and snapped the biscuits back into existence. 

Zira smiled and grabbed a fresh biscuit, taking a bite. “Thanks,” he said, chewing the dry cookie. “Whatever is happening is definitely not my side. Seems like something your side would do, no? This is a little dry, can you *poof* me some strawberry jam?”

Crowley’s sigh turned into a growl as he snapped a beautifully curated selection of artisan jams, honey, and butter into existence for Zira’s biscuits, which suddenly became a fluffier bake. “Is that good enough for you, Angel?”

Zira clapped his hands in delight and started slathering the sweet condiments on the fresh biscuits. “Yes, love,” he said through a mouthful biscuit with mulberry preserves. “Delicious.”

“I didn’t come here for tea and biscuits,” said Crowley. “Although a cuppa earl grey sounds lovely… Are you sure your people didn’t do this?”

“Yes, I’m sure!” said Zira. “Definitely not us. A viral disease, killing lots of people… has demons written all over it, no?”

“Are you kidding?” laughed Crowley. “It’s your boss who operates on viral destruction and plague. I’ve been half-expecting a wave of frogs to come next.”

Zira pondered carefully over a fresh biscuit topped with honeyed yak butter and mangosteen preserves. “I’m thinking maybe this is just another one of those human things. Earth is gross, viruses happen. We didn’t do SARS either. Did you?”

“No, SARS-CoV wasn’t us either,” said Crowley. “We may be encouraging vectors to not self-isolate though.”

“Oh,” said Zira. “People are isolating?”

“Yes,” Crowley rolled his eyes. “There are national and local orders all over the world for people to stay at home to limit the spread of the virus. In some cities, there are even fines for non-essential travel.”

“Oh,” said Zira, buttering up a biscuit before topping it with sweet kiwano spread. ”So you’re saying we don’t have a reservation at L'Escargot on Greek Street, then?"


End file.
